Introspection and the Limits of Physicalism in Consciousness Studies: Toward an Analytic Idealist Framework

Consciousness remains a major puzzle for philosophy and cognitive science. While neuroscience and artificial intelligence successfully describe neural mechanisms and behavior, they struggle to explain the subjective, qualitative essence of conscious experience. Functionalist and physicalist approaches are flawed because they rely on third-person methods and neglect the first-person nature of consciousness. Phenomenological introspection reveals aspects like intentionality, temporality, self-consciousness, and the human search for meaning, which is a constitutive aspect of consciousness, not an accidental byproduct. The paper proposes Analytic Idealism, arguing consciousness is ontologically primary and the external world is an appearance of internal processes. Advancing consciousness studies requires combining empirical research with first-person introspective inquiry and a metaphysics positioning consciousness as fundamental.

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Abstract

Consciousness represents one of the greatest philosophical and cognitive scientific problems to date. Contemporary neuroscience and artificial intelligence have been immensely successful in describing neural mechanisms and behavior, yet the subjective, qualitative essence of conscious experience remains difficult to explain within either discipline. It is argued here that functionalist and physicalist approaches are fundamentally flawed because they are largely based on third-person methodologies and fail to accommodate the first-person nature of consciousness. Phenomenological introspection is utilized to examine aspects of conscious experience such as intentionality, temporality, self-consciousness and the human quest for meaning. It then looks at the dimension of consciousness' existential meaning as analyzed in phenomenology and existential philosophy. It is further argued that the human search for meaning is a constitutive aspect of consciousness, rather than an accidental evolutionary byproduct. The present inquiry provides a framework for addressing these questions via the metaphysical approach of Analytic Idealism. The metaphysical argument offered is that consciousness is ontologically primary and the external world represents the appearance of these internal processes. In conclusion, the study contends that the field of consciousness studies can best be advanced through a dual approach of empirical research combined with first-person introspective inquiry, as well as a metaphysics which positions consciousness as fundamental